This story builds on classic capers and heists by adding the paranormal: an Immortal Viking conman from the time of Beowulf. Stig blackmails a desperate business owner by threatening to reveal her immigration status. Yeah. That. Christina is one of the many people brought to the United States as a child, only she’s a tiny bit too old to qualify for any protections under the “Dreamer” policy, also known as DACA.

I wrote this book years ago, hoping that plot point would become out of date, an artifact of a different era, like when you read about car phones, dresses with shoulder pads or the John Scalzi sci fi books where everyone carries “PDAs.” I don’t know any immortal Vikings – but I know people like Christina, business owners, employers, health care aides, PTA volunteers — all of them living, working and paying taxes while desperately vulnerable. That’s Christina and so many others that we don’t “see” because they try to stay invisible, to stay safe.

Could you make it out alive?

I’ll donate the sum of the royalty check that includes this sale period — from all my books, including my award-winning novella His Road Home — to the ACLU and an appropriate immigrants’ rights charity. Our nation needs everyone’s strength, everyone’s energy, everyone’s love.